Tuesday 26, November 1996
SIALKOT, Pakistan, Nov 25 (Reuter) - Nike, the U.S. sporting goods giant, and a Pakistani firm on Monday opened a soccer ball stitching plant that they said will help eliminate child labour in Pakistan's sporting goods manufacturing industry.
The plant will be the first in Pakistan that does not outsource its stitching work but hires its employees directly, ensuring that they meet minimum age requirements, Nike Inc vice-president Matthew Wolff said at a news conference after the plant's opening.
The facility will be operated by Saga Sports Ltd, a Pakistani athletic equipment maker that does subcontract work for Nike. It is located in Say Yoke village, 20 km (12 miles) west of Sialkot near Pakistan's border with India.
"Today, Nike, Saga, and Pakistani workers take the first giant step into a new era for a whole industry,'' Wolff said.
The plant will employ nearly 500 stitchers to make soccer balls for markets in Europe, Asia, and North and South America.
The manufacturing of soccer balls in Pakistan has traditionally been handed over to subcontractors who would take the raw materials to village households, where the work is often turned over to children.
Wolff said Saga's plant would provide benefits such as free medical care for workers and their immediate families, group life and disability insurance, free meals and free transportation to and from work.
"Nike will not tolerate the use of underage labour in the production of its product and this stitching centre, and others that follow, will ensure that,'' Wolff said.
"What we are doing here is to show that by mutual cooperation private enterprise can have a major impact on working conditions and things like child labour within the Pakistani soccer ball industry....''
Saga plans to set up five similar stitching centres by September 1997 and another 10 by December 1998.
Pakistan is one of the world's biggest exporters of soccer balls, shipping 35-40 million of them a year, almost all produced in the dusty town of Sialkot.
Pakistan has suffered heavy international criticism for its widespread use of child labour.
Saga Sports president Khurshid Soofi said a meeting of the World Federation of Sporting Goods Industry in London on November 21-22 had decided that manufacturing and exporting companies should minimise the use of child labour.